It’s official. Only the Brave (OTB), the key company in the fashion empire of Renzo Rosso, has acquired Jil Sander, the Hamburg-born label known as the highest expression of minimalism in fashion.

Finally, Paris Fashion Week had an actual live catwalk show. A drive-in runway event witnessed Thursday night by a few score of editors and influencers from inside Citroen DS7s and staged inside the AccorArena.

After a “turbulent” trading year, it certainly wasn’t all bad news for Coats Group despite delivering mostly negative numbers in its 12-month trading statement to 31 December on Thursday.

Lockdown notwithstanding, Wednesday was a very busy multinational day in Paris Fashion Week, with the season’s key debut, the first collection by Gabriela Hearst for the house of Chloé.

There are two opposing camps this season in fashion. One sees women post-lockdown refusing to sacrifice comfort for future; the other, led by Dolce & Gabbana, insists women are desperate for a night on the dancefloor.

​If anybody needed confirmation of how important fashion resale has become, it came on Monday with the announcement by France’s Vestiaire Collective of a new €178m financing round backed by Kering, among others.

Serious editors had to open Sunday watching an MM6 show video in Milan, tune into New York for Tom Ford’s latest ideas, and finish in Paris, where Sonia Rykiel unveiled its first collection since insolvency in 2019.

Germany's flat sandal maker Birkenstock stepped into the luxury league on Friday, with an LVMH-backed company and the French group's billionaire owner Bernard Arnault snapping up the iconic brand.

It’s hard to think of a designer more in synch with a great fashion house than Wes Gordon, the creative director of Carolina Herrera. We Zoomed Wes to discuss creating for an iconic house and designing in the pandemic.

Like many other online fashion retailers, Farfetch saw soaring demand last year and said on Thursday that its 2020 gross merchandise value topped $3bn, up 49% year-on-year. Meanwhile revenue rose 64% to $1.7bn.

Belmond, LVMH’s luxury hotel and resorts group, has named Karl Bieberach to be its head of global development and responsible for the global expansion of Belmond’s portfolio of  hotels, trains, river barges and safaris.

Though February is traditional the season of women’s ready-to-wear in London, this month Burberry staged a purely menswear collection in its Horseferry House headquarters, and entitled it 'Escapes.'

One true test of any great artist, or significant designer, is whether or not they have an identifiable signature style. One of many reasons that Molly Goddard has become one of the most important creators in UK fashion.

There was a notable French touch at London Fashion Week this weekend, with shows from Stephen Jones, Bianca Saunders, Bethany Williams, N Palmer, 16Arlington, Preen by Thornton Bregazzi, Art School and Jamie Wei Huang.

Like most luxury houses, Valentino was strongly affected by the pandemic last year. Accordingly, the Italian Maison saw its revenues fall from 1.22 billion euros in 2019 to 882 million euros in 2020. 

Dolce & Gabbana has named Lady Kitty Spencer as its debut global acmbassador, marking her latest link with the house since first appearing on their catwalks back in 2017.